Girls
by HalcyonSeasons
Summary: New Moon AU: Girls will be girls - Bella doesn't like them. Here's to being annoyed by everything and everyone but not speaking up about it. Very drabblish, very teenage angsty, and very metaphorical.


_**A/N: **Hey, guys! I'm bad. So, uh, I have terrible procrastination right now. I keep starting all these fanfics and then stopping. But, I did come up with this. I think Slashuary is slowly turning into Femuary. Welp. Anyway, I was listening to "Girls" by Marina and the Diamonds. That song really speaks to me. This one-shot is very autobiographical in a way. Take that as you may. Enjoy._

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_**Girls**_

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_Is there any possibility you'll quit gossiping about me to hide your insecurities?_

_Marina and the Diamonds, "Girls"_

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When I was a little girl, I used to endlessly wonder why I never befriended other littler girls (or anybody, really). Was I a freak? Sure. Am I still a freak? Hell, yeah. But that's only half of the problem.

The problem with girls is that they suck.

California girls, Phoenix girls, Washington girls… They're all the same. I've met countless Jessicas and limitless Laurens. The Jessicas and Laurens are impossible to ignore. Sometimes they hide under their Brittany masks; sometimes their Ashley ones. They're really just all the same.

You'd think I'm a cynical person, but I try not to be. I'm just surrounded by bitches. I'm a bitch, too, of course, but at least I'm not vocal about it. I was always told that it's not ladylike to behave like a slime, but that doesn't mean I can't think like one.

Girls are predictable. Too predictable. They lie all the time, but they get hurt when others lie to them. Does that dress look fat on Jessica? Yes. Is Lauren going to tell her? Of course not. What girls do is so obvious—it's an endless, vicious, stupid cycle. Girls get jealous, too. Lauren ate more calories than Jessica? That's a sad life right there. Is Jessica going to admit her jealousy, though? Never. They're best friends for life.

I normally wouldn't care about Jessica and Lauren and their California-to-Phoenix-to-Texas-to-Florida counterparts. The problem is, though, I'm involved.

I am the biggest fucking topic of their conversations.

I don't know how celebrities do it; who can tolerate being talked about all the time? Why would anybody _want_ their name to be in the disgusting, perished mouths of other people?

Apparently, since I'm boyfriendless, I'm a hot topic. I'm only so popular in the Valley of the Dolls (also known as Two Seats Down the Table) because my Prince Charming won't be able to save me, and I wouldn't show enough emotion to get someone else to defend me. If I don't make any faces, nobody does anything.

It's not like I'm okay with bitches bitching about me—I'm not. My issue is that they know I can hear them, and they don't fucking care. They give less fucks about how I feel than the number of fucks I give about their personal issues. There's a civil war occurring at my lunch table, and I'm too tight-lipped to take my white flag out.

What do they want from me, anyway? My hair? (Ew, no way; I look like Medusa.) My clothes? (It's not like Lesbians 'R' Us—also known as the Practically Ugly Closet of Bella Swan—isn't open. They can go right in.) My personality? (Ha! If Jessica and I could trade minds, she'd return mine like a stained dress.) I have nothing to offer. They have nothing to talk about. I can imagine their whispers now. They'll become real when I turn away. _"Did you just see Bella blink? Ugh, why does she do that!?"_

Fucking ridiculous.

Or maybe I'm just a bigger bitch than the both of them. I complain and complain about how annoying they are, but then I become annoying as _I_ complain about _them_. High school drama is an ugly, repulsive thing. You never get out of it until you graduate—some people even deal with it after graduation. Parents always advise their kids to keep in contact with their high school friends… What-the-fuck-ever. If I run into Lauren and Jessica in the future, I'll run in the other direction. Since I can't avoid them in high school, I should try to to avoid them in ten years… If I even make it to be twenty-eight. I always feel like I'm not going to live much longer. I have nothing to live for, of course; why should my expectations be so high?

I try to focus on my lunch. Well, that's an overstatement; this isn't the typical lunch. It's plain yogurt with granola spread all over the top, even though I specifically asked the woman at the little Forks High School version of a café to _not_ give me granola. Maybe she couldn't hear me through her hairnet. I slowly pick the granola out (it makes me think of vomit) and then open my milk slowly and carefully. Nothing wrong can go with that. The whispers are there, nonetheless. They are boa constrictors, squeezing the life out of me; I am nothing but a helpless mouse.

I don't know what they're saying about me, but I know it's not good. If it really is good, they would be telling me rather than cupping each other's ears, giggling, and occasionally picking at their salads to make it look like I don't know what's going on. How dumb do they think I am? Sure, my boyfriend broke up with me and I gave a performance that would fit right in a horde on _The Walking Dead_, but I'm not stupid. I have a brain. I get good grades. I make the honor roll every single time. I don't win anything for being smart, but I am definitely not stupid. I know what they're doing, and it fucking sucks. It doesn't hurt, since nothing really hurts anymore, but it sucks. This sucks and I suck but most importantly, girls suck.

I hope their mothers are proud; they write such good stories about other people. They deserve so much praise. I know I can't be the only antagonist of their spoken novels; I've heard them mention Angela and Mike and everyone else a few other times. And Jessica and Lauren still wonder why Angela, Mike, and everyone else (but me) left the table? They're merely a virus—nobody else wants to be infected.

So why am I still here? I've already been a zombie once—why would I want to still be one? Am I still a zombie? Do I want to be a Barbie, like Lauren and Jessica? Would I be a zombie Barbie? I don't know, but I certainly do know I can't stay here. I'll get the disease. I don't want to be a Barbie. I don't want to gossip to hide my insecurities—at least, not verbally. I have my own issues, and I don't need the Barbies to add on to them. I need to change a lot of things about myself, and this can be the start.

I stand up and grab my yogurt (sans granola), and I feel like I already did something. Wow. I know I'm being judged (_"Ew, she's so skinny," "Ew, she's so fat," "Ew, she's so dumb," "Ew, she's such a nerd"_) and I don't care. You hear that? I. Do. Not. Care.

I mean, it still annoys me. Why shouldn't it? I'm not a celebrity; I'm not designed to take all this shit. I wasn't born with an extra skin to protect me or make me feel like someone other than myself. I am very bothered. It would be a crime for me to _not_ be bothered with this.

Sometimes I wish Lauren and Jessica were smart enough for me to insult them in Elizabethan English (that was the one part of the _Romeo and Juliet_ unit I actually enjoyed). If I called them mammering, clapper-clawed strumpets right now, they wouldn't get it, and there would be zero point in it. I would just look like an even bigger idiot.

So I'm aiming for the clouds now—I need to stop. No insults today. Standing up is good, though. Standing up is just fine. I just don't know where to go. I scan the cafeteria and can't find Angela or Mike or anyone else I used to know. Shit. I look like an absolute moron. I don't have the right hair or the right clothes or the right face or the right personality, and now I'm looking around for friends I don't have.

I sit back down and sigh down at my yogurt. More whispers surround me. I'm losing my mind. It's one thing to try to make a change, but it's another to succeed at making a change. I'm pretty sure I was born to lose.

Maybe the problem isn't just girls; maybe the problem is I'm a freak. I'm different, and in the worst way. The harder part to deal with is the fact that I am not only fighting a war with Jessica and Lauren; I am also fighting a war with myself. My body. My mind.

When I think of it again, I don't think I'm going to see my twenty-eighth birthday. Or my twenty-fifth. Or my twentieth.

Mindlessly, I turn to Jessica and Lauren and say hi. I smile with my teeth like a good girl and come up with plenty of stupid questions in my head. How many calories do they eat a day? What are their workout plans? Which stores have the best music? Who are they asking to Prom?

I decide that this could work. I might as well join the Barbies while I can.

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_Fin._


End file.
